


between the boy and the vineyard

by zechariahfour (sodas)



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Character Study, Gen, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Series, Pre-Relationship, Recovery from addiction, Slap Slap Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 14:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18741046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sodas/pseuds/zechariahfour
Summary: But before Sing walks away, he jerks his thumb over his shoulder, to the left, to the left. Yut-Lung’s eyes follow along to the left. He sees what Sing wants him to see: the vase in the corner, the dead blooms stooping low their heavy heads. Their petals were so lush that they haven’t dried and shriveled, but have rotted like fruit. It must smell like a saccharine death, made worse by Yut-Lung’s cloak of wine. Yut-Lung is almost embarrassed, but he’s ultimately too drunk for the usual dose of shame.“Ah, yeah,” says Yut-Lung. “Yikes.”“Yikes,” agrees Sing.





	between the boy and the vineyard

**Author's Note:**

> self-indulgent lol

For a while, the house is empty. Yut-Lung thinks this averages out to a relief. His choice to fire all his household help doesn’t feel like a bad one, even when it means he’s steaming his own rice and eating little else. He drinks tea. He drinks a lot of tea. For three miserable weeks, he doesn’t touch the wine—and then the misery overwhelms him, and he does touch it. He touches too much wine. He’s drunk and he takes no guests—what a novelty! A breeze and a dream! No sex, no murder. He sings something about freedom, a languid ditty while he sprawls on his sofa, waiting for assassins to come into his house now that he has no bodyguards. Nobody hears his off-key voice. There are no young men hitting him in the face, no old men caressing him. His brothers are dead. The help is sent away. Nobody tries to kill him. Sing doesn’t visit, either.

Until he does.

\--

“God damn,” says Sing.

Yut-Lung squints over to examine this infringement. “What are you doing here?” he asks. His voice warbles strangely, because he isn’t sure where to place his emphasis: you or doing or here. And because he’s drunk.

“What a freakin’ mess,” says Sing. “The minute I leave…”

“For a month,” Yut-Lung corrects.

Sing corrects him in kind: “Month and a half.” He’s pushing his hand through his short hair, bracing his fingers against his scalp. This is a white-knuckled sort of—actually, Yut-Lung can scarcely believe he notices the white at the points of Sing’s knuckles. Snow-capped, it must mean he’s angry. Yut-Lung’s mouth is hanging open while he continues to notice it. “No good. This is what they call a bender, boss.”

“What are you doing here?” Yut-Lung says again. His voice is no less vague. He would have to fight to unwind himself from the weight of the wine, but he doesn’t. He has no desire to fight the comfort of being drunk. If he wants to fight anything—anyone—if he wants to fight—

“You suck,” says Sing. Yut-Lung realizes then that he has thrown a heavy glass bottle at Sing. He realizes, _then,_ that what he’s actually done is tip it off the table, and it’s rolled toward Sing’s feet, dribbling out little glugs of wine as it’s gone.

It’s not like Yut-Lung disagrees with Sing. He thinks about this. “Then spit at me,” he decides.

Sing grimaces at him. “I’m not doing that.” He’s not being noble; he just thinks it’s stupid. Yut-Lung can tell. Well, Sing is the stupid one.

No, that isn’t true. Yut-Lung is just put out because nobody has shown up to murder him for fame or money or revenge. _That’s_ how little he amounts to. That’s how little he has mattered in the design of Chinatown.

Meanwhile, amid the toxic swirl in Yut-Lung’s head, Sing is still talking. “I seriously trusted… crap, saying it out loud sounds really stupid, so I guess it’s on me… I trusted you not to _do_ this, man.”

“Too bad you weren’t here to try to tell me what to do,” Yut-Lung says, prim and slurring. “Like you always feel the need to. Well, it isn’t my fault you decided to go dallying around doing whatever you…” He sucks in a breath to keep the bile back. The actual, physical bile. He isn’t in the mood to vomit. “Whatever you like,” he sighs.

Sing stares at him. He sets his shoe on top of the wine bottle and gives it a little roll, while he stares. “I was mourning my brother,” he says. He says it like blacktop: held together with thickest tar, rough on the skin.

It makes sense. Obviously, it makes sense.

Yut-Lung flutters his eyelashes. He doesn’t do it to be pretty or mean. They feel sticky, and he feels neither pretty nor mean. In a novel moment, one he doesn’t ever want to forget, all Yut-Lung can taste is ethanol and ruth. “Well,” he starts to say—he doesn’t taste that word. It tries to ride the ethanol but loses itself to the ruth. His teeth slide against his bottom lip. That much he does taste, for the lingering of the wine. Yut-Lung isn’t sure what it is he feels sorrier for: Sing’s mourning, or that Sing had someone to mourn. Maybe he feels sorriest for brotherhood and what it means to each of them. “You really should spit at me,” he says meekly, at last.

Sing snorts. “I’m outta here,” he says, turning on his heel. He spins and the wine bottle spins away from him. The last of its wine makes a little arc of pale red onto the carpet. But before Sing walks away, he jerks his thumb over his shoulder, to the left, to the left. Yut-Lung’s eyes follow along to the left. He sees what Sing wants him to see: the vase in the corner, the dead blooms stooping low their heavy heads. Their petals were so lush that they haven’t dried and shriveled, but have rotted like fruit. It must smell like a saccharine death, made worse by Yut-Lung’s cloak of wine. Yut-Lung is almost embarrassed, but he’s ultimately too drunk for the usual dose of shame.

“Ah, yeah,” says Yut-Lung. “Yikes.”

“Yikes,” agrees Sing. “I’ll see you later, boss. Maybe I’ll catch you when you’re sober.”

Later, Yut-Lung will be humiliated throughout all the depths of him. Now, as Sing leaves him again, he lies back against his cushions, shuts his eyes, and relishes the numbing of his own nerves while he still can.

\--

He decides to get clean not for health or wholeness, but for pride. He wants to properly shout at Sing. He supposes he can’t do that if he’s slurring or if he can’t keep a straight spine. If he’s flushed and sleepy, he can’t be sharp enough to shear or gut. _When Sing comes back,_ he tells himself, every time he avoids a bottle. _When Sing comes back, when he comes back. I’m really going to give him a piece of…_ And it doesn’t all happen at once. Sometimes he understands—he’s convinced he understands—that Sing isn’t going to come back. Sing has brotherhood to mourn, kin to grieve, while Yut-Lung is the utmost sower of grief. He said something once, didn’t he, about hell and about not wanting Sing there, and he wonders if Sing feels like he’s in hell. That alone has Yut-Lung feeling lost in the maze of the dead. He is shambling. He shambles toward the wine. Sometimes he’s convinced he understands, and he drinks again. But then, sometimes he doesn’t.

Somehow, like throwing darts at the right day, Sing does catch him when he’s sober. The maid is a new girl: all the staff are. Yut-Lung vetted them over two and a half weeks, filling his halls with people who will cook and clean for him, with people who will—horror of horrors—keep him safe. Someone tries and fails to kill him just days after he installs new bodyguards. He stays alive and thinks, _Shouting at Sing had better be worth this._

So the new maid announces one Sing Soo-Ling, and Yut-Lung is sober, half-swaddled in a shawl with one hand cherishing a cup of tea. His hair is loosely braided, but his skin is less sallow and his eyes are full of today and not the time travel a wineglass offers. He thinks he’s doing well enough to have earned a shout or two at Sing. So he’s turning in his seat, opening his mouth. He does it smoothly, wanting to crow about his own grace—see how _sober_ he is! Won’t you look at him and see that. He’s nearly smiling for the anticipation—Sing will get to listen to Yut-Lung’s sober self, and Yut-Lung’s really going to tear into him—you know, for being gone so long, and for being obnoxious and presumptuous too—

The flowers in the crook of Sing’s arm have such rich blooms, the greenest stalks, and a palette like glimmering dusk. They’re fresh cut, Yut-Lung can tell. And Sing is holding them with such a straight face, no warm smile or bratty wrinkle of his nose—just a straight face. He doesn’t allow anything to twitch onto his cheeks. He says, “Looks better in here. You still got that fancy vase? Go grab it.”

“Ugh,” says Yut-Lung. He feels as ripe and colorful as a nectarine, and he feels sweet like one. When was the last time he felt sweet? “Sing, you have the rudest mouth!” And he says it like a song, without slurring, without sorrow. He thought he was going to shout.


End file.
